Gill Germain

I am a paper cutter. I live in an isolated house high on a hillside in the North Pennines. I sit at my table under a glass ceiling looking out at the changing face of the fell. The skies are huge and the heather clad hills are dressed by the mood of the day. The sounds are of lapwing and curlew in the summer months, of sheep always, of wind and of weather. Night time is moon shadow bright, pitch black dark, or veils of stars thrown over the deep well of the sky.

For the past few years I have been cutting paper, drawing with a knife, slowly telling the story of this place and my place in it. My feelings for it, my fears for it, my thoughts about and my love for it. This place is just a drop in the ocean of the world, but it is a living breathing essential part of the world’s well being.

I cut freehand with a knife. Layers of paper are laid over the work to protect from the movement of my hands, and through a small window of about an inch or two I slowly cut away and watch the spaces fill with the intricate lines that grow and connect. Over time, the cutting has become more and more intense. I always have a feeling of whatever it is that I want to express. A rough sketch places it on the paper, I add washes of colour, and from the first cut I follow the impossible lines and connections and find the rhythm of the cutting.

it is slow and it can take up to a year to complete a cutting. So there are not many. I don’t really see a piece as a whole until the end, and then it takes time for me to get to know it. They are all extremely fragile and handling one makes me feel nervous. They are on the edge of invisibility and hard to look at.